When I was trying to describe my music preferences to a friend the other day, it dawned on me that I've never heard most of my favorite composers' names pronounced. I could easily be mangling them!

For instance, even though I actually went to Dear Friends, I can't for the life of me remember if it's noh-BOO eww-EE-mat-su , noh-BOO-oh ooh-EE-mat-su, or something else entirely.

On the other hand, thanks to extensive research, I am now sure that it's Michael jee-ah-KEE-no, not (as I was saying) Michael jah-CHY-no.

So would anyone like to weigh in on how to pronounce their favorite musician's name? The ones that are particularly vexing me right now are Iwadare, Hosoe, and the name Keiichi (as in K. Suzuki or K. Sugiyama). Oh, and Ito, that's a real toughie

Very interesting thread. Here's how I pronounce the ones I find myself saying out loud:

Akira Yamaoka: a-KEE-ra ya-may-OH-ka
Akitaka Tohyama: a-KEE-ta-ka to-YA-ma
Ayako Saso: a-YA-ko SA-so
Daisuke Ishiwatari: die-SU-kay ish-ee-wa-TA-ri

Actually, as I type this I realize that I do the same thing for pronunciation. Must be the Bostonian in me. I accentuate the second syllable on the first name, and the second to last syllable on the last name. Very interesting.

I'm scrolling through my iPod now, and it sounds like I pronounce the first syllable on bisyllabic names. So it's MO-toi instead of mo-TOI. I'm sure this is not the correct thing to say. In a conversation I had with someone from the boards in person, I said Kahori's name as kay-HOH-ri and he said KAO-ri.

Basically, when you want to guess how to pronounce a Japanese name, you have to separate the syllables and pronounce them apart from what comes before or after. This is really noticeable in the case of Hosoe or Hamauzu: ho-so-e, ha-ma-u-zu (also, ke-i-i-chi and kô-i-chi). Actually, you only have to know how to pronounce Japanese vowels, that is:

- "a": sat
- "e": set (although it is closer to French "é")
- "i": will
- "o": boat
- "u": zoo

Japanese syllables are:
- a, i, u, e, o
- ka, ki, ku, ke, ko
- sa, shi, su, se, so
- ta, chi, tsu, te, to
- na, ni, nu, ne, no
- ha, hi, fu, he, ho
- ma, mi, mu, me, mo
- ya, yu, yo
- ra, ri, ru, re, ro (or la, li, lu, le, lo, since Japanese do not make any distinction between r and l)
- wa, wo
- n

However, you also mention Ito. Sometimes, you can read his name romanized as Itou. The "u" means that the "o" is a long vowel, not that it should be pronounced "oo" (like in "foot") or whatever. Koichi Sugiyama is another example: you can romanize his name as Kouichi (or Kôichi when you have ^ on your keyboard), because the first "o" is a long vowel.

Hope this helps.

I pronounce them... uhh... correctly?  I dunno, Japanese is a relatively easy language to pronounce, once you know the basics.  It's a syllabic language that has essentially four vowel sounds:

a  (as in "open your mouth and say AH" or like the "o" in "holiday")
i  (which sounds like a long E in English, like in "eat")
u  (kind of similar to the "oo" in oodles, but a little softer)
e  (short e sound in English, like "heckle")
o  (long o sound as in "oatmeal")

A single consonant sound can be added to the beginning of any of those, so you can break down Japanese names into their syllables and get the pronunciation pretty easily.

Ex: Sa-ki-mo-to, Ya-ma-o-ka, Ho-so-e.

The one exception is "n," which sounds to us like a stand-alone consonant.  It is still considered a full syllable in Japanese, though, and can be sung as one in songs.  You can just pronounce it like it would feel natural in English, though.

Ex: Ko-n-do (kon-do sounds fine)

You also don't put specific stress on any given syllable.  So for a name like Uematsu, every syllable should be given the same amount of stress, not pronouncing it as u-e-MA-tsu or u-E-ma-tsu or whatever.

Hope that helps?

This used to give me problems, but once you understand how Japanese works, it becomes a lot easier. Just remember the sounds never change and put equal emphasis on the moras (which are basically Japanese syllables). This is also why English sounds so awkward when the Japanese try to speak it.

So, Mitsuda is three mora (Mi - tsu - da) with equal emphasis on each.

Uematsu is still one of the ones I hate to say (U - E - Ma - Tsu), so he sounds like U - Way - Ma - Tsu now, instead of "Yooeymatsu" like I used to.

Kuja: Careful with "wo"...It's usually romanized "o" and sounds the part, but in certain pronunciation spots, it does sound like "wo". Depends on context.

"Wo" is mostly romanized as "o" when it is a grammatical element, which is not to be found it names, indeed... Well, even in names it is very rare anyway. It is funny to realize that these problems in pronunciation depend on the mother tongue of the speaker: in English, most vowels have a long list of different prononciations... which is not the case in French, for example (we have accents, though). At first, it seemed odd to me that "a" is pronounced differently in words such as make, bad, wall...

In this case, the "su" in Daisuke is suppressed (the same way it is in the word "desu", for instance) so it should come out sounding more like die-skay. It's one of the few areas in which Japanese is a little non-standard in terms of pronunciation.

ee-wa-dah-reh

hoh-soh-eh

kay-ee-chee

ee-toh :p

Careful with this one... I'm not 100% sure how "sat" is pronounced by non-American English, but if you pronounce your Japanese "a" like we say "sat," you'll have quite the odd accent.

Yep, "i: will" is somewhat of a stretch as well, as there is no short vowel "i" sound in Japanese.  As Joe and some others have mentioned it's a long "e" sound as in eat or see.

I'd say the only real tricky parts of Japanese pronunciation is hitting the accent mark at the right place, although this mostly (not always, I don't think) seems to be determined by the number of syllables in word.  Aside from that "ryo" and "ryu" combinations are a bit tricky at first, as are double consonant combinations (can't think of any composer examples but "Hattori" is a common name).

Haha, the Japanese experts come out of the woodworks!

I'm no expert (as experts go), but I'm decent and living here now so I might as well weigh in.  The basic pronunciation of the syllables is both easy and well covered already, though the more difficult issue of emphasis hasn't been addressed entirely.  In English, the normal way is to emphasize the second syllable (a-KI-ra, no-BU-o), but honestly English is such a mish-mash of other languages it's really all over the board.  Japanese has its exceptions too, but much more regularly emphasizes the FIRST syllable.  That means that, in Japanese, the "correct" pronunciations are:

A-ki-ra YA-me-o-ka
A-ki-ta TOH-ya-ma
DAI-su-ke I-shi-WA-ta-ri (the last name being a compound word)
NO-bu-o U-E-ma-tsu
YA-su-no-ri MI-tsu-da

Though frankly, I don't fault native speakers of other languages like English for altering the emphasis when actually using the names while speaking in English (as long as the actual pronunciation is correct).  E.g., the Japanese city is actually pronounced "O-sa-ka" (like "Ohh-sa-ka", since the actual Japanese is two o's), but I don't see the problem calling it "o-SA-ka" if you're actually speaking English, but maybe that's just me.

Adam: long time no see!  Are you still living in Japan?  I actually have a place in Tokyo myself now, so I promise I won't crash on your floor again

Beat me to pointing this out. I learned this first from watching Eva. When I'd read about Eva I'd always assumed I'd pronounce Asuka's name "a - SU - ka." Ultimately, it comes out more like "Ah - ska." Again, the "u" in su is suppressed. The same goes for Sakura, which many English speakers mispronounce by emphasizing the "ku" when it, too is supressed.

I think it's important to recognize the "trend" (not rule, but trend) of which vowels are STRONGER and which vowels are SOFTER in the Japanese language. And, without a doubt, "u" is the softest. You almost always use it in kana (pronouncing foreign words) to end a word that would traditionally end in a consonant (the only exception is with "to/do" since the inherent sound of tu/du is actually "tsu/duz," so you say Makudonarudo for mcDonald's, for example).

Also, Sephiro, it's Yamaoka, not Yameoka. :P

It's funny, even when you say it correctly without the "su" it still sounds like it's there.  Say it fast, you'll see.

You're both wrong.  It's pronounced G-O-D.

I'm with GoldfishX on this stuff by the way.  Once you know how to pronounce all the "syllables" and know not to put any emphasis on any particular one, it's easy as pie.  And I certainly agree that it always feels weird saying Ooh-way-mah-tsu.  I remember back before I knew how to say all these names I would always butcher poor Jun Senoue's name.  I think I pronounced it Sen-oh instead of the way it should be, "June (like the month) Seh-no-ooh-way."  Actually now that I think about it, is that even right?  It looks so awkward typed out like that.  The way I say it, the no and ooh get kinda mashed together so it's more like Seh-nooh-way when said fast.

-Mike

Well, excuuuuuse me!  Both are valid Japanese last names (I just obviously haven't been paying enough attention to the instructions in my iFuturelist CD )